Fluxbox vs Openbox, chaotically compared

Patients: FB + lxpanel + (nitrogen, compton)  vs OB + tint2 + (nitrogen, compton)

I installed Vsido 3. And there is really nothing new to nag or praise over (see review-like of ver 2). ... Only change worth to mention is that Fluxbox is now sole installed WM. See release announcement.
Means - not a big excitement - but, for squeezing some profit out of my install, I spent some (many) hours poking in Fluxbox and comparing it to my beloved Openbox. Here are results:

## lxpanel vs tint2

0 Takes less recourses. But who cares about 10-20 megas of RAM. I don't ... if we talk of two different environments.
- Appearance is markedly less configurable than tint2.
+ At the same time, you can get those fewer options in nicy right-click-on-panel menu.
+/- has panel plugins, tint2 doesn't. How useful they are ... depends on use, and if they function (in Vsido, at least, pagers refused to work. One of them demanded Openbox, other simply crashed the panel). There are bunch of system and hardware monitors - but those would look better in Conky. There is show/hide desktop plugin ... which can be considered useful or not. There is volume control and clock - which are useful alright. I have clock in Conky, though...
+ can create more panels from menu. In tint2 you have to start separate tints for that.
Conclusion: Lxpanel wins in ease of usability. Tint2 wins in looks and flexibility.
I quite like lxpanel - but no swap, I stay with tint2.

## FluxBox vs OpenBox
FB one , two; OB one, two.

- dragging windows's around is strange ... sluggish - cursor moves, but window lags way behind. When releasing mouse button, window jumps. Never observed suchlike in OB. Googling also gives not-a-few mystery lag-problems. No solutions, though.
- window resize is only possible from bottom grips.
- certain theme changes need FB restart. And that's quite annoying - one starts to look for (unexisting) over-rides and ...$$%^$ ... so on.
+ apps' window positions, dimensions, workspaces etc etc: Compared to OB, FB has upper hand here - more options, and those are easy to use by right-clicking window title... plus editing files. There isn't such right-clicky-thing in OB. It is bloody convenient thing to have.
- themes: fewer configurable options. There is 'window.roundCorners' parameter (no such thing in OB) - but this 'roundness' is so pixelated that it looks like major crap.
+ themes: Has ~/.fluxbox/overlay file where it's possible to define your default fonts. Over-rides themes' parameters and gives consistent text-look when using different themes.
+ Menu creation: Manual way is definitely syntactically shorter than in OB. And maybe FBs' menu editor is a bit better than Obmenu.
+ Tabs  - there isn't such thing in OB. However, how needed the feature is, depends again on way-of-use.
0 Wallpaper and changing it. Not an important theme at all - but I decided to investigate/install. Here, both WMs have to use helpers - as they are not DEs.
    Fluxbox first: One way is here.   Then Wally, it's GUI and can get pictures from different sources. Wally needs qt4 installed.
Fluxter: different wallpapers in workspaces plus pager - but it's dead code. That was precisely only way I managed to get it compiled and working. Different wallpapers for workspaces can be set also - and more easely - with FB changeworkspace entry and fsetbg or feh.
    OpenBox wallpapering: with those links here, you can find a bunch of different scripts for random change and/or for different desktops. ...Wally is not OB compatible, though.
AND - I also committed myself with this - see here, a story, with code!
0 Slit, dock-like thing, needs specific dockable apps (above-mentioned fluxter is one). Googling leaves the impression that it's essentially dead. So no pluses or minuses here.

Conclusion.
As I have noticed, there are people who salivate very much over FBs Tabs - so that might be the only real winning feature of FB - if you happen to like/use it. Right-click-title-menu is nice...
At the same time, at least for me, window-drag-lag and bottom-grip-resize are quite unpleasant. I don't use Tabs (honest, I thought about it - and no, I don't know why I should).
Add fancy refresh problems with themes... leads to: No, I am not going to swap to Fluxbox. But it certainly is the second best WM after Openbox.
Merry Christmas.

Vsido 2, review-like

| Informational note, 2014, Vsido = Fluxbox only, pulseaudio, systemd |

Generally, I quite hate writing reviews. In this case, there are two reasons for installing Vsido and reviewing it: First - the nostalgic one - Vsido was my first real Linux (means, not Ubuntu-based). So it can be taken as homage to VastOne. Secondly - I have problems with Fluxbox in Slackware and wanted to compare confs with other Fluxbox.
Fortunately my gratitude to VastOne doesn't forbid me to whine and bitch over Vsido 2. So, let's...

The story of installing Vsido ver.1 is here.
I wrote iso (64bit, 16.oct version) to USB with Unetbootin, and booted to Live without any problems.
Desktop layout has remained quite the same as in ver.1.: Conky up-left, and (hidden) dock-thingy (lxpanel) at bottom-center. Newcomer is Wicd icon in up-right corner. Wallpaper is the same as Vsidos' website header... well, it's better than previous one.
If one doesn't use wireless, then wicd should be promptly uninstalled. I also would uninstall lxpanel and replace it with tint2 (which is already installed, and used in Openbox). I like my launched apps nicely visible, as also three icons (terminal, spacefm and firefox) and system tray. And I do not like launch-once-docky-type things at all.

So, let's install (installer is in System menu).
There is quite a lot of explanatory text here and there - which is good. Gparted is for partitioning. Then comes nice compact menu for creating user, passwords and computer name. After that comes choosing timezone and lastly, grub install (which has all needed choices).
Whole install took less than ten minutes.
Vsido boot was normal (fast) debian. Display manager is - as previously - LightDM, but in it's new and moronic form. I logged in and was greeted by first-time script. I let it dist-upgrade - which is, in my opinion, a bit dangerous thing. What happens if there is, say, big xorg update? Anyway, update was successful - and biggish as always with Sid. Script installed apt-xapian-index, which is great (creates seach-box into Synaptic). The script offers also to install cups, java, Libreoffice and some more things.
One can do the same - and more - through pre-installed smxi script. But I suppose welcome-script is good thing to have.
There are - additionally to default Fluxbox - Openbox, i3 and Xfce installed. Which is quite a lot of options.

Fluxbox menu.
First, why is Spacefm represented with general icons? Spacefm has very nice original icon - why not to use it?
And here comes my loudest whine: the menu structure and app distribution in submenus are bloody strange!
- Settings: Why is Gparted there? Why is Disk Manager installed at all?
- Accessories: Why are Lxappearance (and, by the way, 15pt font size for text is way too big) and Nitrogen here? And Htop??
- Development has Xcalc in it!?
- Fluxbox menu should sit in Settings, as submenu, and not as separate menu.
- Internet: Why to have Wicd and Ceni both installed?
- Multimedia: So, Vsido got pulseaudio installed this time... well, fortunately there is 'purge'.
- System: Not sure if Gdebi and Aptitude are good for anything.

Now, app choices doesn't really matter - everyone has to make their own picks anyway. But - sticking apps into absurd places certainly is irritating. And having a bit more consistent menus through different sessions would be definitely bonus too.

Everything what was installed seemed to work - except Iceweasel, of course (bookmark toolbar not functioning. Also - whole menu was grey and fuzzy-looking.).
Net was picked up without any problem. Initial memory usage was pleasantly low 125 megas.

Openbox.
The same look - but dock-thingy is created with Tint2 and it's not hidden here. Terminal comes transparent by default - and that's not a good thing. When terminal happens to be on top of white app, it's unusable.
Menus - A lot better here, but:
- Compton sits under Graphics... really, now...
- Audacity is missing in Multimedia. Not that I would use it, but why inconsistency?
- I would put Tools and System menus together.
Font size in menus (in Fluxbox menu too) are too big and look like childrens' book.

i3.
Well - i simply couldn't open anything there, who knows how it's supposed to work. Fortunately console and killall helped.

Xfce.
Dock is created with lxpanel and is hidden. Menu looks textvise better than boxen ones. But it has huge problems with icon sizes - there are at least 3 different sizes all mixed up. And there are double entries.
- Settings has Openbox Configuration Manager sitting there.
- Accessories has Nitrogen - which should be in Settings; Spacefm is doubled, and with different icons; Root Terminal shouldn't be in this menu at all.
- Internet has two Iceweasels.
- Multimedia has two gmusicbrowsers (and icons are of different size.
- Other has 'Fluxbox menu' and 'Openbox'. No, I didn't try...
- System has two Spacefms and two Xfce terminals.
So, Xfce session looks quite untuned. Maybe it's time to drop it? Vsidos' forum leaves impression that there isn't very much Xfce users... if any.

Now, if all previous left the impression that I hate Vsido - then no, I do not. As far as Linux distros go, Vsido is one of the best.
It has pleasant clear-cut installer and installs without any problems. It works. It's fast and lean. Fluxbox and and Openbox are good bases to personalize onto. And all those whined-over menu things can be fixed in an hour. But experimental Iceweasel is a pile of crap and should be purged as a first thing.
I think I liked first version of Vsido a bit more. Not sure why... maybe it's this first love thing. Second version seems to be more advanced-user oriented. Which is a wise move - I guess that there aren't very much noobish Vsido-users in existence.
... And I did not manage to fix my Slackware Fluxbox. Looks like, maybe, a compile-time.

Tip-heap, tweak-pile

Collected chaotic scraps and bits from dealings with Debian Sid - Vsido
Things not worth to blow into full post, but which can take (and took) unholy amount of time to dig out from crap-piles of Web.

# Spacefm uses icons from your current theme - and those doesn't have to be 100% of your liking. Icons can be changed through .config/spacefm/session file. It's a bit of detective work but doable (only icon name has to be used, as it is; no pngs, no addressing). NB! when saving your changed file, Spacefm has to be closed - or else it overwrites your changes (when you close it). To use different icons in groups doesn't seem to be possible - currently at least. But keep your eye on Igurus' doings anyway, development goes on.

# Tint2 - kinda shows workspaces... means it divides taskpanel to equal workspace-areas. I find it unconvinient. Thankfully there is pre-defined (Openbox) mouse-scroll-over-desktop for switching. At the same time - NB! I haven't tried it - I am quite sure it's possible to create launcher with xdotool exec with workspace-switcher keybind (same way as this here is done).
- Tasks - what I find marvelous is that task tabs are resizable (and colorable). Also, when using icon + text then the text will be broken to 2 lines AND resized to fit. Entirely cute!
- All in all - Tint2 seems to me optimal for OB. I tried some others and found them less fitting ..., but do check: fbpanel, lxpanel, xfce-panel, pypanel - to mention some.

# Conky - needs apps for getting temps and things: hddtemp and lm-sensors at least. Read wiki.
When you use OB super+d (show/hide desktop) and your Conky disappears (and you hate that), then change in .conkyrc:  own_window_type normal to
own_window_type override.

# Debian menu - the package 'menu', creates menu from all installed things. Can be inserted (IS inserted in fresh OB install) to OB menu. This <menu id="/Debian" /> has to be between menu start and end tags in menu.xml. And it has to be addressed in rc.xml: /var/lib/openbox/debian-menu.xml (just before the line of menu.xml). update-menus forces it to refresh. Debian menu is good source for building your new OB menu. Which will be refreshed by openbox --reconfigure, by the way.

# smxi etc - super scripts for easy-upgrading. Just to mention again: this funny colorful text that runs by HAS TO BE READ, or else quite horrid surprises might happen.
smxi and sgfxi auto-update every time you run them, inxi - the systeminfo one - needs to be updated manually: inxi -U.

# .bashrc has lines to define how title text of terminal window appears: xterm*|rxvt*)
PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1"
In my single-user machine I found default myname@mymachine part totally obstructing and silly (especially when minimized to taskbar). So I removed it - you just need to delete those 6 symbols in PS1 line \u@\h:

# Unavoidable CLI - few basics only, but at least in one place:

# devices list
sudo fdisk -l

# check what definitions iptables have
sudo iptables -L

# install the deb pack you downloaded
sudo dpkg -i packagename.deb 

#update and upgrade everything
sudo apt-get update
 # want to check versions? 
 sudo apt-get install apt-show-versions
 sudo apt-show-versions -u 
# Install all updates
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
 # and clean it up
 sudo apt-get clean
 sudo apt-get autoclean 
 sudo apt-get autoremove

# hate some packages? delete their confs too?
sudo apt-get remove --purge hatedpackage

# wanna see some info of installed package?
sudo apt-cache policy packagename

# open console and start other session in parallel
#C+A+F1 to F6 opens console. 
# C+A+F7 to F12 shows sessions. F7 is first and current.
# (use startx or xinit = the same result)
# Openbox to C+A+F8 
startx openbox-session -- :1 
# Fluxbox to F9
xinit startfluxbox -- :2
# Xfce to F10
xinit startxfce4 -- :3 

# Security - read this EPIC work here. Quite educational.

# Fluxbox. Last downloaded Vsido ISO had Fluxbox as a default session. Also, there was pronounced 'I-love-fluxbox-even-more-than-you'-party going on in Vsido forum. That was kinda funny alright.
Now, the thing is not bad at all, easy to setup and such. It's simply that I personally haven't found yet how it's better than Openbox. So I don't use it (after initial play-around).
So, just to blab something:
- to start FB session from console, the magic word is startfluxbox.
- I got an impression that FB windows are resizable only by (bottom) handles, which I find ...er... restricting. I might be mistaken, of course.
- There is a file .fluxbox/overlay. Style parameters written there overcome everything what fluxbox themes have. An option to have certain things defined like default. So it's good to know about it - especially when puzzling over 'why the shit in theme doen't change when I bloody change it'.
- When using Spacefm as a file manager, I found it convenient to use it also as a desktop manager - in 'startup' file add ( spacefm --desktop ) &
Then Spacefm can start your wallpaper (and so replace Feh or Nitrogen) ... and if desktop icons are your 'thing' then you can add them too.